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Mac Mini With M4 and M4 Pro Reviews: Smaller Design and Pro Performance Make for Major Upgrade
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Peta’s review gets a little more “real-world” than others and has comments on noise as well:
petapixel.com
M4 Pro Mac mini Review: Pro Performance in a Tiny, Affordable Package
This cute little computer packs a serious punch.
Im pretty sure that the black ring under is rubber so that wont be needed.
I am more concerned about a way to install a dust filter because this is worse than the Studio (disassembly wise) to properly dust the internals off.
Worse, the design doesnt seems to be friendly to the use of a pantyhose as a filter.
I'm definitely buying a new Mini to replace my 2018 Mini, but two things are a tad annoying.
I much prefer the space gray of my Mini to silver.
Power button on the bottom is asinine.
However, the specs and the price make the new Mini a no brainer
Now, what wired USB-C Keyboard and Mouse do I buy? I don't want Apple's
I much prefer the space gray of my Mini to silver.
Power button on the bottom is asinine.
However, the specs and the price make the new Mini a no brainer
Now, what wired USB-C Keyboard and Mouse do I buy? I don't want Apple's
I agree. I have the late 2012 iMac still, and I was really looking forward to moving up finally. Seeing the base with only 256GB still, and the cost to upgrade does feel insulting to me personally. UGH.
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so many talks about the power button placement, have anyone tot of placing their mac mini upside-down permanently on desk? like just stick some rubber feet on 4 corners top side of the mini and flip it. Walla... there u have a reasonably accessible power button...
Why? What are the issues or shortcomings are you experiencing with your current setup?
Best value only if you're okay with what base line Mac Mini gets you. But then again it's 256GB of built in, non removable storage, for a desktop computer is severely lacking. And no, external drives aren't the same.
Going with storage upgrades and you're deep down into the rabbit hole.
Going with storage upgrades and you're deep down into the rabbit hole.
I'm a Studio guy. The M1 Ultra hit the sweet spot for me as a pro editor and designer who did not want to splurge on a new Pro 39-lb boat anchor with thousand dollar accessories. I'm a small shop, not an ad agency. No, this is the best I've bought from Apple, desktop size, system on a chip, 64 GB RAM, has purred quietly and hosted the complete Adobe collection, and delivered 4K RED video and Photoshop files for 2 years now without a choke. It is a delight.
Waiting for the M4 Studio box and stats before considering the upgrade!
Best as always,
Loren
Waiting for the M4 Studio box and stats before considering the upgrade!
Best as always,
Loren
I will wait for a later chip as my (silent) M2 Pro is still just a year old that machine will work for a few more years yet, like iPhones I don't update computers every year when there is a new design or new chip. I have a 13" M4 Pro iPad and a iPhone 16 Pro, so that's enough new things this year.
Apple have had enough money out of me this year due to old age updates like my third gen 13" Pro iPad, which lasted well but its battery was dying. My old iPhone was due a update as well. I hope everyone has a great time with their new Mini's, it looks like a great machine. I do wonder if the Pro version will throttle, but time will tell.
Apple have had enough money out of me this year due to old age updates like my third gen 13" Pro iPad, which lasted well but its battery was dying. My old iPhone was due a update as well. I hope everyone has a great time with their new Mini's, it looks like a great machine. I do wonder if the Pro version will throttle, but time will tell.
True - the button on the Studio - contoured flush into a corner (I think the M2 Mini was similar) - is a perfect storm of fiddly to find when you need it and possible to press accidentally. That said, somehow I've never contrived to press it accidentally when plugging stuff in or moving it - plus it needs a long press to power off - and as for accidentally switching on, there are other good reasons for not moving the Mini when you have it plugged in to power and other devices which might not appreciate having their cables jerked out, but, yeah, it had already been hit with the "form over function" stick.
Unfortunately, rather than address those issues (like, combine it with the front power LED as many here have suggested, or needing a long press to power on, as per iDevices) Apple decided to double down on their "let's prevent that power button offending users' eyes" obsession and hide it in an even less convenient place.
To be fair, it is now harder to accidentally press the power button when you have to pick your Mac up... in order to press the power button. Oh, wait...
(And, seriously, that button is right where your fingers are going to go if you pick the Mac up). Mechanically, unless you mount the mechanical button on the bottom of the rack, you still need some sort of lever/cam/widget to rotate the force of the press through 90 or 180 degrees - OK, hardly rocket surgery but no simpler than putting a remote button on the front of a rack.
What you actually want is an Arduino operating a servo so you can have proper lights-out remote management!
In terms of rack mount, the issue is why the 4th largest PC maker can't - maybe in collaboration with Sonnet or somebody - make a proper rackmount Mx Pro/Max system with the usual server trimmings of modular/redundant power supplies, lights out management etc. Sure, it would be a niche product, there wouldn't be stock in the Apple store in Liechtenstein - but it could probably be done with a standard Mac Studio logic board (which I believe has most of the ports etc. on daughterboards) and the sort of custom heat-sinks and enclosures that even relatively tiny PC OEMs seem to manage to source...
Of course - they used to - the XServe - but I think that kinda lost its Unique Selling Point when Apple switched to Intel and the XServe became a.n.other rackmount PC running what is - for server purposes - Unix. Now they have their own unique CPU - plus an army of developers needing to build apps for A-series/M-series chips with rapidly converging MacOS/iOS frameworks etc. - it may have a role again.
Instead, they have very cleverly made the new Mini smaller in width and depth but too tall to fit in a 1U rack, moved some ports to the front edge and moved both the air intake and outlet to the base (so rack mount makers are going to have to be careful not to trap the hot air and feed it back into the intake...)
These Minis do offer fantastic bangs-per-buck (except the 256GB SD models) but design-wise they're a superficially cute form-over-function dumpster fire.
It will be interesting to see how the "honest" reviews rate the thermals/noise - but it's simple physics that cooling relies on a combination of surface area and what volume of air per second you can shift through the heatsinks. Surface area goes down with the cube of physical dimensions, while smaller fans, smaller air ducts, smaller heat sinks mean the air has to move faster to shift the same volume, which tends to create more noise. Maybe Apple have cracked this with clever engineering (hopefully the cooling wasn't designed by the genius who came up with the power button) but they've made things harder for themselves with their "smaller is better" obsession.
I just hope that, for the M4 Mac Studio, they de-prioritise size vs. functionality.
I share the same fear - don't shrink the studio, Apple!
The m4 max with the beefier cooling of the Studio could probably be impressive quiet. Unless they shrink it!
The studio's design is new compared to how long the old mini was around. I have some hope they will keep the current form factor.
Why are you reading sites producing shill reviews? Just wait until a credible site reviews.
Most sites business models are around users loading ads, so if you go to those sites you are promoting that behavior and ensuring they continue.
From a manufacturers point of view, I would suspect they don’t mind having good reviews.
Got mine today and have already set it up using a Time Machine backup. First impression...it is impressive. Small, quiet, FAST...and the power button in my case is a non-issue. I never shut my machine down and if I do need to access the button all I have to do is lift up the back left corner just a bit and press it. It also stays put on my desk, even with cables coming out the back. I'm gonna put it through its paces this weekend but so far I'm glad I upgraded my older M1 machine.
Agreed! It is INSANE we are still getting base models with 256gb of storage. NUTS!"It still starts at the same $599 price—even if its base 256GB of storage is a bit paltry—but making the jump to the $799 512GB configuration is not unreasonable."
Yes -- it IS unreasonable to charge $200 for an additional 256GB of storage
That's an additional amount of storage that's about $30 on Amazon at retail pricing ... so basically "nothing" for Apple
Just pure profit taking -- flat out stealing from people quite honestly
I really wish these sites would draw a more honest conclusion and not softball Apple like this
It's also nuts that Apple sells memory for so much more than retail stores like Best Buy sell it.
Yep. Was looking at the configs on the Apple site earlier.
The base model might be the best value to be had of any current Apple product. That value proposition disappears very quickly once you start upgrading the memory or storage.
A little powerhouse. I first got into Apple in 2005 with a Mac Mini - great entry and also ended up using it as an Apple TV before Apple TV was a thing (it used to come with the Apple remote like the Macbooks of the era). To make this powerfull at 2000 dirhams (400 pounds ish for education customers is utterly amazing)